The Academy’s annual Nominees Luncheon feels like the best award-season gathering we the public aren’t invited to. That’s possibly why it’s so cool and genial. According to the Academy, 18 of the 20 acting nominees were set to attend today’s fete, which got underway at noon in Los Angeles, and three of the five directors.

Even if we can’t partake in the rubber chicken (and honestly, Mad Moviegoer doesn’t know what they’re serving), we can rubberneck with three local filmmakers. Director-producer Daniel Junge and two of his coproducers — Davis Coombe and Alison Greenberg– of the disturbing short-doc nom “Saving Face” are at the Beverly Hilton as MM types.

With “Saving Face,’ Junge and Emmy-winning codirector Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy turn our gaze to Zakia, 39, and Rukhsana, 23, Pakistani women attacked with acid by their husbands. Their stories of disfigurment and painful recovery are infuriating, but also promising: Zakia was the central and brave figure in a landmark case to create new legislation in Pakistan.

Junge found his way into this human rights saga when he heard a BBC radio feature about Dr. Mohammad Jawad and the reconstructive surgery the London plastic surgeon performed on Katie Piper. The model and TV personality was attacked with acid on a London street in 2008. The assault was arranged by an ex-boyfriend.

Rukhsana, 23, one of the subjects in the Oscar-nominated short "Saving Face."

On March 8, HBO will broadcast “Saving Face.” Denver audiences can see a preview of the powerful, 39-minute film during the 2nd Annual Women + Film Voices Film Festival on March 7 at the Denver FilmCenter/Colfax.

“It’s such a treat to have a premiere screening of ‘Saving Face’ in the festival,” said fest founder Barbara Bridges via email. “We’re not only supporting a local filmmaker, we’re also showing a terrific film that’s up for an Oscar. The film is so well done and tells such an important story that I’m certain it will win.” Spoken like a true advocate of social justice film and local filmmaking.

Women + Film Voice Film Festival runs March 6 – 11 at the Denver FilmCenter/Colfax, 2510 East Colfax. Go to denverfilm.org for updates.

Film & theater critic Lisa Kennedy likes to watch -- a lot. She also has a fondness for no-man’s lands, contested territories and Venn Diagrams. She believes the best place to live is usually on the border between two vibrant neighborhoods. Where better to apply this penchant for overlap and divergence than covering film and theater – two arts that owe so much to each other yet offer radically idiosyncratic pleasures? In another life, Kennedy was an Obie judge. In this one, she’s been a Pulitzer Prize judge in criticism, an Independent Spirit Award jurist and Colorado’s first member of the National Society of Film Critics.

More than a mash-up of the Running Lines and Diary of a Madmoviergoer blogs, Stage, Screen & In Between offers engaged takes on Colorado theater and film and pointed views on news from both coasts and both industries. Culture lovers, add your voices. Culture-makers, share your production journal entries and photos.